PM arrives in Frankfurt en route to Toronto

FRANKFURT - The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, arrived in the German city of Frankfurt shortly after 5.30 p.m. local time on Friday. e was received by senior German protocol officers, India’s Ambassador to Germany Sudhir Vyas and India’s Consul-General to Germany and Frankfurt Ajit Kumar.

No minister of the German government was present to receive Dr. Singh, as Indian officials said that he (Dr. Singh) was in transit and heading towards Toronto for the G-20 Summit on Saturday morning.

Prior to his departure to Canada, Dr Singh while being in New Delhi, talked about India’s plans for the G-20 Summit.

Dr. Singh said: “India will participate in this exercise and project our expectations from the global economic and financial system, and the kind of global growth processes that we seek.”

“We will highlight the importance of development issues in the future work of the G-20,” he added.

Dr Singh said: ” The challenge of the summit will be three fold - to ensure that global economic recovery is durable, balanced and sustainable; to calibrate exit strategies in the light of growing concerns over expansionary fiscal policies; and to focus on medium and long-term structural issues relating to governance issues.

“To meet our ambitious development targets it is necessary that the global economy continue to recover in a stable and predictable manner.”

Dr. Singh further said that the coordinated policy actions taken by the G-20 since the first summit in Washington in November 2008, have not only helped to prevent a crisis of the type the world saw in the 1930s, but also contributed to global economic recovery.

“This is a sign of the G-20’s success. At the same time, we have to be conscious that the recovery is still fragile and uneven. New worrying signs have emerged in the Euro zone,” he said.

“Our relations with Canada are becoming broad based and there is a mutual desire on both sides to impart fresh vigour and vitality to them,” he said.

“India and Canada share the same values and there are many opportunities for us to contribute to each other’s welfare and prosperity,” Dr. Singh added.

He said: “I also look forward to have separate meetings with France President Nicolas Sarkozy, US President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron, and Japan Prime Minister Naoto Kan. By Ashok Dixit (ANI)